When awful cover art happens to great albums

In his post about the art exhibit in Chicago, Reno mentioned the Replacements' album Tim, criticizing its cover art. I agree, that album has a truly ass-ugly cover ... which is a particular shame, since it's my favorite album by that band.

What would you cite as other examples of terrific albums with lousy cover art?

Off the top of my head, I always hated the cover of KINGS OF THE WILD FRONTIER by Adam and the Ants.

Although that would be stretching the definition of "terrific" to the breaking point. Enjoyable, yes. Terrific, nah.

One that comes to mind for me is XTC's Mummer. A very good album, IMO, but with a really dull cover ... especially considering some of the cool album covers XTC had, prior to that one.

I read (in TP, I think) that XTC had wanted to appear on the cover wearing costumes made out of old newspapers, but their label nixed the idea. Too bad; at least that would've been somewhat interesting.

On the flipside of this coin, I've always hated Supertramp's music ... but the cover of Breakfast in America is one of my favorites.

Post Edited (10-05-07 16:29)

Post Edited (10-04-07 16:31)

Squeeze "Argybargy" is one of my fave straight-up pop records.

Cover looks like New Wave porn.

Yeah, the cover on Hang Time is a real downer. I was never able to mentally get past it and embrace the record. The cover of their prior record was also pretty bad. Who wants images of a human slaughterhouse in their mind when they are listening to this kind of music? Wrong cover for the genre. Same goes for Maggot Brain by Funkadelic.

Paganizer, not sure why you are dissin the Sonic Youth, Slint, and MBC covers....those are respectable. Noticeably you spared Goo.

In my opinion, an album cover has a pretty profound effect on the perception of the music, even on a chintzy CD jewel box. From the same era as Tim.... REMs Life's Rich Pageant sounds exactly like that drab, peat-moss colored collage on the cover. Ditto for Fables of the Reconstruction. And the brightly colored Green and Out of Time sound like a band emerging from the darkness and into the sunshine.





Post Edited (10-04-07 21:36)

This is one of the worst in recent years:



I think that white box is intended to block Paul's rotten teeth which he often complains about in interviews.

I love the music on that "Come Feel Me Tremble" album to death and I even love the cover/packaging, which I always thought was meant to be a parody of crappy bootleg packaging - right down to the songs being out of order on the back cover in one case.

Note, the "mistakes" (or at least attempted jokes) :

He's in Grandpaboy mode on the cover of an album released under his own name, the photo itself is like a grainy "tv shot" from the film and the inside graphics are in simple boldface, the back cover shot is literally a shot of his back. ........etc.

Of course, one mans parody is another man's "it's not a parody mats84, it's just a crappy album cover".......er, or something like that.

>
> Of course, one mans parody is another man's "it's not a parody
> mats84, it's just a crappy album cover".......er, or something
> like that.
>


the cover might be a parody, but i think it's just a crappy album...

the prevaricators - detente

or is it actually a great cover on a pretty good album? hmmmmm




not the ideal picture, but the dog is feeding on the old broad's breast while the young girl looks on.

Junkyard by The Birthday Party has always made me think "what's all that about then?"
Some great tunes on though.

I definitely agree with Nosepail that an album cover can greatly affect the perception of the music on the album. I remember an interview with Kate Bush around the time THE SENSUAL WORLD was released where she was talking about how varied and colorful (I'm pretty sure those were her exact words) the music on that album was, but my impression of it was that it was all pretty monochromatic and a bit drab, and I think a big part of the reason I felt that way was the austere black and white cover of it. I've always wondered if I would've felt the same way about the album if the photo on the cover had been in color.

By those terms, the White Album would include, uniformly, the plainest, dullest music that the Beatles ever made. The White Album has been called a lot of things, but I've never seen it described as plain or dull ... let alone uniform.

I agree that the covers shown here by Soul Asylum, Sebadoh, and most of the Sonic Youth albums are pretty weak. (Could there be a link between bad cover art and band names that begin with S? Discuss.) And ohhhh man, that cover by the Prevaricators ... talk about something that does not go with breakfast!

I definitely get into the Soul Asylum and Kate Bush albums mentioned above, regardless of their cover art. As for the R.E.M. albums, Fables, Lifes Rich Pageant and Green all are superb, classic work, IMO. I've never been able to embrace Out of Time fully, though. To me, at least half of it is the sound of a band emerging from a state of vigor and purpose, and submerging itself into laziness and self-indulgence.

I didn't think much of the cover to COME FEEL ME TREMBLE. I suppose I just thought of it as extremely lo-fi, which worked with everything that was going on with Westerberg at the time.

PLEASE DESCRIBE YOURSELF, by Dogs Die in Hot Cars manages to combine truly horrid cover art with an abysmal band name while delivering amazing, transcendently brilliant music.

I don't get the Slint hate from the Pagan. I've always been much more intrigued by that Corbijn-esque cover than by any of the band's music. Did Will Oldham shoot that cover or am I suffering from early-onset Oldhamitis? I seem to recall his nefarious hand in that somewhere...

no Slint hate
thought food

But is the MBV cover just a way overexposed misfire snapshot from a disposable camera? sure looks that way (i gots nothin gainst found art...)

The SY stuff looks like somebody said "hey we forgot to turn in the cover art"
"well either cut out something from that pile of magazines or step into the hall and take a picture"

White LP probably seemed cool at the time. Not as cool as the Black Album, which had the same highbrow coupled with parody.

That Oldhamitis is tricky stuff. When my grandpa got bad, we'd find him standing at the stereo removing all bass response, cranking the treble and then asking that we allow the sex to make us unrecognizable; that we allow slow violence to prove us rebaptizable.

What, nobody's gonna defend the Clap Yr Hands? Guess it really is shite.



Post Edited (10-06-07 01:11)

I dig that Slint cover as well. Will Oldham did indeed shoot that photo, tho not the spider photo on the back.

Speaking of Slint, saw 'em in Seattle a coupla months ago doing the Spiderland thang in its entirety (plus some other shit afterwards). Amazing.

Clap Yr Hands album cover is fine - it's the band that is problematic. The singer has to be one of the most annoying to come down the pike in a long time. No matter what the band lays down behind him, that affected whine instantly kills the erection for me. Enjoying this band is like trying to shag Fran Drescher. (Please oh please dont talk)

The White Album deserves its miserable cover. Give me Revolution, Dear Martha, and a couple others...you can keep Obl-a-di, USSR, Glass Onion, Rocky Racoon and all the other pap on there. Dear Prudence has to be the most overrated of all Beatles songs. In fact, just put any of the 6 previous Beatles records please (or any of the 2 latter) on the turntable instead and I will be happier.

Yeah, the Sonic Youth covers are crappy. However, speaking as a dad who owns father-son Washing Machine tee-shirts (the son being my 3 year old), I cant really knock 'em.

Anyway, this post is really just a provocation to get Paganizer to post his thousandth post. Don't blow it Paganizer? What is the secret to pop music? Who is the greatest artist of all time? Is it Ted Nungent as we have all suspected?



Post Edited (10-06-07 22:54)

Paganizer's 1000th post was actually two or three years ago, but by coincidence was indeed about Ted Nungent, the notorious transsexual Roman Catholic singing sensation.

The great Pagan brought his usual depth of analysis to such Nungent tunes as "Greg or Rhianna Chant" and "St. Francis' Ass I See-See."



Post Edited (10-07-07 19:09)